


quiet days

by bookhobbit



Category: Leverage
Genre: Autism, Gen, Nonverbal Communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 18:39:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4636014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhobbit/pseuds/bookhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parker can't talk right now, and that's okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	quiet days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Soundingonlyatnightasyousleep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soundingonlyatnightasyousleep/gifts).



> I've been thinking a lot about nonverbalness as not necessarily a state of distress? Idk, for me it's not always, sometimes I'm just quiet and it doesn't mean I'm sad it just means my brain doesn't to do words out loud. So I wanted to explore that a bit with Parker. Also! Domestic fluff. You can definitely read this as Eliot/Parker/Hardison if that's what you're into but I couldn't figure out if my giftee was into it, so I sort of left it gen-ish. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy, Soundingonlyatnightasyousleep!

Small spaces are safe spaces.

Parker has known this ever since she was a child, ever since small spaces meant nobody could find her to hurt her. Ever since hiding was the best solution for a life full of chaos.

Sometimes people think that Parker doesn't want to be safe. Nobody who jumps off roofs and scales buildings and gleefully thwarts laser grids can care about safety, can they? 

That's wrong, though. Those things are thrilling, but the point is, they don't make her feel unsafe. She knows her equipment and she knows her body and she know, through and through, what they can do together. She knows where her limits are. 

But small spaces where she can hide and collect herself and get away from noise and people and pressure - those are good.

Which is why she's currently lying in an air duct, breathing out slowly through her nose, trying to recover from their last job.

It hadn't been a bad job, but it had been pretty tiring, and she needs a break to recover. So, now she's in the air duct. 

It's a special air duct in the apartment above the brewpub that she keeps especially for hiding in. It has a Star Trek blanket it in that Hardison donated because it was soft and comforting and that still smells like him. There's also a couple of little fidgets Eliot bought her that she uses sometimes, and other stuff that helps her relax. Although right now she mostly just wants to lay here quietly.

Below her, she can hear Eliot and Hardison talking quietly. She can't make out what they're saying, probably something about the job. She could put her headphones on and listen to white noise or music or nothing if she wanted to, but their voices outside are kind of soothing, actually. She knows they won't bother her and that they'll protect her if they need to. They're a barrier against the world, a little extra reminder that she's safe here.

For a while she just stays there, listening to the voices and concentrating on her breathing. Then there's a gentle tapping on the bottom of the vent, and a piece of paper clutched between two long brown fingers waves in front of her.

She smiles at Hardison's little flourishing gesture and takes the paper. It says "Eliot's gonna start making dinner. Are tomatoes an ok texture right now?"

Parker sticks her thumb outside the vent, pointing up. Hardison returns the thumbs-up and his hand disappears.

The quiet clattering and dull thuds of chopping say that Eliot's started in on dinner and she's feeling calmer now, so she drops out of the vent and onto the floor.

Hardison looks up from the couch where he's sitting. "You all right?" he asks gently. 

She nods. 

"Is this a no-talking zone still?"

Parker considers this question. She points at herself and nods. Then she points at Hardison and shakes her head. Meaning, she can't talk right now, but she doesn't mind if he does. 

"Okay, cool," he says easily. "Eliot's making something Italian for dinner, I don't know what."

"Bruschetta," says Eliot from the kitchen, with his usual pretending-to-be-grumpy-but-not-really-grumpy voice. It's taken Parker time to learn how to distinguish that from his actual grumpy voice, but she can do it easily now, which she's really proud of. "And French onion soup. That okay?"

Hardison turns to look at Parker. She nods.

"She says it's cool. You know me, I'll eat whatever you put in front of me."

"Yeah, including stuff I don't put in front of you," says Eliot.

"You still haven't let the sandwich go," says Hardison in tones of mock outrage. "Can you believe this?" he says to Parker. "He still hasn't let the sandwich go."

Parker raises her eyebrows and shakes her head, putting on an exaggerated amazed expression. Hardison laughs.

"Parker's on my side. I'm a growing boy, Eliot."

"You're twenty-seven years old, Hardison."

"And you're almost forty. OId man."

"See, now you're angling not to get any soup," says Eliot. But Parker can tell he's still pretending to be grumpy. She leans up against Hardison and smiles.

"Hey, so," says Hardison, wrapping an arm around her waist. He drops his head down for a moment to press a kiss to her head, which makes her wiggle happily. "I was thinking. Pressure's good, right?"

She nods against his shoulder.

"Okay, cool, so - what if I made one of those squeezing machines for you?"

She looks at him with her eyebrows raised and her head tilted, to say she's surprised and confused but not in a mad way.

"You've never seen one?"

Parker shakes her head.

"Oh, cool." Hardison sits up, reaches for his phone. "They're really neat. Like, look, basically you put two flat sides and something soft and you calibrate it so you can apply deep pressure." He types something into the searchbar of his browser, and after a few seconds flourishes the phone with a grin. "See? Super easy to make."

Parker wants to say, especially for a genius like you, a little teasingly and a little truthfully. But her words still haven't come back, so she smiles and nods and points at Hardison.

"The cool thing," he continues, "Is that you can use it without the stimulation hugs provide. Right? So if you're too keyed-up for a hug but still want the pressure you can go in this thing. Nice, huh?"

She nods.

"Anyway, so do you want me to make you one?"

Another nod. It would be nice to have a way to get deep pressure without having to ask someone else for it. Sadly, it probably won't fit in her air duct. Still, the fact that Hardison is thought about her when he saw the squeezing machine thing is making her feeling really good inside, all warm and happy. 

Eliot pokes his head into the living room and says, "Hey, you two ready for dinner?"

"Yeah," says Hardison. "Parker's not talking right now," he adds. "Just so you know."

"All right," says Eliot. He looks over at her. "You eating?"

She gives him an unimpressed look, like, what do you think? and he grins.

"All right, all right. Come on, then."

They go to the table where there are plates and bowls and she passes the salt when Hardison asks and snickers at Eliot's expression of pain when Hardison dumps way too much of it into his soup, and nobody says anything about her not talking. Nobody asks if she's broken, or tells her to use her words. They just look at her face and her hands and if they don't understand they tell her and ask her what she means. She doesn't have to talk until she wants to, and she'll never quite be over how nice that feels.

Having a team is definitely better.


End file.
